Sato takes Portland, while Dixon rallies to finish fifth
PORTLAND, ORE. — Scott Dixon claimed to remember little about his last race at Portland International Raceway, a visit 16 years and four championships ago.
Should he win a fifth IndyCar title this season, his return to the Pacific Northwest will be one he never forgets.
Dixon salvaged his championship run Sunday with an improbable comeback that made the championship his to lose.
Dixon finished fifth, far behind race winner Takuma Sato, but put together the kind of drive that may define his season.
He started 11th, was collected in an opening-lap crash, penalized for speeding on pit road and twice drove through the field from 20th.
His Chip Ganassi Racing team was forced to change its strategy several times, and caution flags helped Dixon cycle ahead of the other championship contenders.
He goes to the Sept. 16 season finale with a 29-point lead over Alexander Rossi.
“Huge day for the team, feels like a win for us,” said Dixon.
Rossi had a decent race Sunday but was cycled out of the lead because of cautions. He finished eighth and lost three points to Dixon.
It was a terrible day for Power, the Indianapolis 500 winner. He had a mechanical problem eight laps into the race that seemed to make his car stall and he conceded the lead to Rossi.
Power later went off course into a tire barrier and finished 21st. He’s tied with Newgarden for third in the standings.
Sato, meanwhile, used fuel strategy to win his third career IndyCar race and first since he won the Indianapolis 500 last season. The victory was his first with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing.
Ryan Hunter-Reay nearly caught Sato over the final two laps but wound up second. Sebastien Bourdais, the last winner of an open wheel race at Portland in 2007, was third.
Portland hosted 24 consecutive open wheel events but none the last 11 years.
The return of IndyCar was met by enthusiastic fans and a Pacific Northwest crowd starving for a look at major league racing.
The fans got a show when the race began with a multicar accident that sent Marco Andretti through the air, over two cars and upside down into the dirt.
It was the same crash that collected Dixon and should have ruined his race and perhaps his championship chances.
Stuck in the dirt, he put his car in reverse and drove away with minimal damage. Then, his improbable finish has made the title his to lose.
“I couldn’t see anything once I got off the in the dirt, it was just dust everywhere,” Dixon said. “Then I kept getting hit and hit and thought, ‘Oh, this isn’t going to be good.’”
WICKENS UPDATE: Sam Schmidt visited injured driver Robert Wickens in the hospital before travelling to Portland.
Schmidt, a quadriplegic since his own crash in 2000, waited until Wickens was transferred to Indianapolis earlier this week to visit the Canadian.
Wickens suffered a spinal cord injury in an Aug. 19 crash.